Sourcing for Circularity

How do you choose the most sustainable material? Well, the more you know, the more you realize how complex and variable the answer may be. We’ve compiled a few open-access databases and analytics tools that go some of the way to guiding those choices, and thought about how we’d like to see them evolve.

Scroll down for living list. Last updated 01.22

The linear economy is, simply put, a one-way ticket from ‘take’ to ‘waste’. We extract a material, we make something from it, we sell it, use it, discard it. The circular economy, by contrast, is a transformative round-trip. It captures value at every cascade of a product’s life, repairing, reusing and recycling materials to keep them in circulation — and off the trash heap. But the transition to a circular and regenerative economy is especially challenging for the textile industry due to inherent material properties that inhibit recyclability.

In our own quest to be more circular, we also strive to be more conscious in our textile material choices, actively designing our products for disassembly and biodegradability. So, as part of our summer research project, PCH product designer, Gianna, teamed up with textile engineer, Konstantin Utz, to explore existing textile material databases in order to simulate a perfect circular material sourcing journey. And, as with so many points within the circular supply chain, they encountered both an encouraging increase in good initiatives (and intentions) but also a sorely fragmented and siloed solution landscape.

More than ever, we believe that intelligent, transparent and collaborative databases can facilitate the shift towards a circular economy by advancing future material production and processing. So, what would it look like? We identified the following hybrid features as key to our ideal, circular material database:

Best for LCA analysis + sustainable policy implementation for businesses
Based on the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI), it incorporates both scientific data and SDG goals. Free tools include the Carbon Tax Calculator, CO2 emissions comparison and evaluation, and scope benchmark.

Pros: Portfolio + profit margin /Environmental impact analysis, 30.000+ datasets

Best (and only) open source LCA analysis software
An open source and free software for sustainability and LCA. Very detailed insights into calculation and analysis results with an ever expanding network of partners.

Pros: Open Source, includes datasets from various resources

Best for text mining tools and AI development of biomaterial repositories
An open resource for organizing information about biomaterials, their design, manufacture and biological testing. Datasets are widely used due to their accessibility and quality.

Pros: Open source, Github repository of DEBBIE retrieval and annotation pipeline, extensive data
Cons: UI not optimized, buggy navigation

Best for Life Cycle Impact Assessment
Non-profit Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database with over 18.000 human activity modeling datasets that support environmental assessments of products and processes worldwide.

Pros: Geographical attribution, scores for several impact assessment methods
Cons: Paid

LCA Database focusing on the apparel industry
Founded by Quantis together with a pre-competitive consortium of leading organizations and companies from the apparel and footwear sector to holistically assess environmental impact along the entire value chain.

Pros: Specialized for the textile industry
Cons: Limited datasets

Best for innovation and green technologies
Interactive marketplace connects technology and service providers with those seeking innovative solutions for energy, water, farming, forestry, pollution, waste, transportation, material production and building construction optimization.

Pros: Sustainable solution focus, up-to-date, globally recognized
Cons: Poor navigation, buggy interactions

Best for material selection and comparison
Widely used, with a focus on material selection to help engineers build better products.

Pros: In-depth material comparison features, extensive range of applicable filters and comprehensive material parameters.
Cons: No material visuals and few biological materials.

Best for high-level 3D scans and visuals of innovative materials
Renders, visual and some technical information about innovative materials. Members can showcase products, buy physical and digital samples, order material testing and share technical data with customers.

Pros: Quality renders, intuitive UI, material outlook education, digitization services
Cons: Few sustainability properties, some materials only show limited and subjective technical information

Best for procurement + sustainable material integration
Widely used marketplace for sourcing materials and components for footwear and apparel. The digital ecosystem connects suppliers and buyers across the globe for more efficient, transparent and cost-effective material sourcing.

Pros: Integration in 2D/3D workflows, sustainability search tool, 24000+ listed materials
Cons: Ad placement could adulterate the ideal material choice

Circularity is not a flickering trend. It continues to become more established as the necessary standard governing human production and consumption. But we will only be able to meaningfully shift to a circular economy if we connect different industries, technologies and people within the value net. Are you ready to connect with us?

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